The KeyLab 49 has been high on my list of potential purchases for a while. I was not fully satisfied with the current controller keyboard I was using, but I also was having trouble finding a controller with the specs I wanted. When I first came across the KeyLab 49 my initial impression was that I really liked the metal casing, the smooth turning knobs, the beautiful blue LED scheme and the layout. I was admittedly a little worried that the light synth action of the key bed would turn me off (being used to a much stiffer controller) however this proved to be unsubstantiated. I found myself very much enjoying the keys over the past 2 months that I have spent with the board.

A few items that really stand out for me are the wonderful faders. It may seem like a small item but they really are a joy to use when sculpting synth ADSR settings. I also found my self enjoying the ability to quickly browse presets from the controllers preset and category knobs. The included software really illustrates how far Arturia has come in the past few years. While All the sounds in the Analog lab software are certainly usable, I did find that the newer offerings (SEMV) compared to older offerings (ModularV) show a much higher sonic quality (listen to a filter sweep between the two and you will hear a marked improvement in the new software).

The vast number of Presets make it a real joy to quickly and easily find what you are looking for. I had no troubles with the software stability I also found it utilized the controller very well. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the Circuits have all been Built. we can wire them all together. This is really quite straight forward. Simply wire everything in parallel. This means that the power wiring for each module goes directly back to the source. This allows us to not have voltage drop across each component.

make sure to leave plenty of extra wire so that you can place knobs and connectors where ever you want in your enclosure.

I will return shortly to show how everything is mounted in the case and give it a nice run through!

Zodiac is a unique-sounding Virtual Instrument designed to provide composers and producers with a collection of original sounds and instruments suitable for film or TV scores, video games, and all types of ambient and experimental music.

No synthesizers were used to create the instruments in Zodiac. Instead, all instruments were created from organic sources such as found sounds, sonic manipulations inspired by classic Musique Concrete, Experimental and Avant Garde Music compositions, prepared or heavily processed musical instruments, and audio recordings subjected to extreme sound design techniques.

Zodiac features over 200 patches and Multis (over 8GB of uncompressed wav data), divided into six categories:

The BeatHawk iPad app has been hotly anticipated for some time now. With powerful step sequencing, easy to use sample recording and editing, song arrangement, fx and more. BeatHawk from UVI boasts and intuitive workflow that lends it self greatly to instant hands on creation of beats while on the go or in the studio.

BeatHawk offers full support for CoreMIDI, Inter-App Audio, AudioBus, Audio Copy and WIST allowing you to create with your favorite tools in whatever way you like. Play your tracks with an external MIDI keyboard or sequence them over Wi-Fi from your computer. If you want to wrap up a track in your favorite DAW just export the stems or MIDI files, it couldn’t be simpler.

An analogue renaissance has ensured that the one-time state-of-the-art sounds of analogue synthesisers have long since become highly sought after again. Why? Well, many musicians realised that the convoluted menu-driven access systems deployed on many ‘modern-day’ digital synthesisers with weaker sounds bathed in built-in effects are no substitute for the hands-on immediacy of having access to a control per function at hand when it comes to speedy sculpting of ear-opening and often powerful electronic sounds suited to a variety of musical genres. With more mainstream recording artists and producers than ever now relying on custom sounds as a result of this rising and renewed interest in analogue (subtractive) synthesis, is it any wonder, then, that yesteryear’s often wonderful-sounding (though not necessarily reliable) analogue classics are rapidly rising in value, pushing them out of reach of many musicians of more meagre means? Meeting this demand head on, more analogue synthesisers than ever before are available today from manufacturers both bigger and smaller. Into this healthy and highly-competitive climate comes Analogue Solutions’ latest analogue offering, the Nyborg-12 SEM synthesiser — so-called on account of its 2-Pole 12dB/Octave MULTIMODE FILTER, the same flexible filter with LP (lowpass), BP (bandpass), HP (high pass), and NOTCH settings that is used on Analogue Solutions’ own Telemark SEM semi-modular synthesiser, similar (though not identical) to Tom Oberheim’s original 1974-vintage SEM (Synthesizer Expander Module®), much sought after itself.

Part 5 The PT2399 DEV DELAY KIT

This circuit is actually very very simple to assemble and shouldn’t really take you more than a half hour tops to build.

It comprises of a board with pads for a few knobs and jacks, as well as a few extra parts so that you can play around and add modifications to the circuit. The PT2399 is a chip that is found in MANY guitar delay pedals. It is a digital chip that emulates the analog bucket brigade. As delay times get longer, the audio degrades. This can be used to great effect when you start to play with long delay times and feedback.

In this video I build the PT2399 Dev board, I do not show me building in any mods. The reason for this is I want you to feel free to experiment with the board. you won’t harm the chip its quite robust and is great fun to play with “circuit bending” it. just basically wire up a momentary switch (included with the kit) and touch the leads to any two points you find interested (by poking a piece of wire around you may find the chip behavior act interesting). For the final circuit I went with the suggested Feedblast the warp and the feedback as pictured below.

Yes thats right! Anyone can build the 555 timer LFO… and to prove it, I let my 8 year old daughter do it! This was Elly’s first time soldering and she enjoyed it immensely (even with a minor mishap!) If she can jump on the Synth DIY horse, SO CAN YOU!

The 555 Timer Oscillator from Synthrotek will be a modulation source for our upcoming Delay Dev kit circuit. (and other circuits as we will keep this modular!)

the Idea is to use this to modulate the rate of the delay board.

For this project, we won’t be hooking up power just yet as I plan on daisy chaining the power off of another circuit first.

we also will not solder on the attenuator just yet as we will be using wire so that we can place the board more efficiently inside of the case. You can buy the 555 Timer LFO HERE—> Synthrotek Store it’s only $15.